wfn.org | Presiding Bishop's Christmas 1999 message

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99-180

Presiding Bishop's Christmas 1999 message

     We move along, through days and years, trying to be 
faithful. Yet, for all our prayers, our pondering of scripture 
and our participation in the sacraments and life of the church, 
in our hearts there is often a still small voice of accusation which 
judges us continually, and finds us wanting. Incarnation is an assault
upon our own spirit of self-judgment, as God's unwavering 
compassion ruthlessly breaks through all of our defenses. Through 
Jesus, God entered our narrow, limited world and set us free--
overriding our self-judgment with mercy and assuring us that his 
grace is always sufficient and his power is made perfect in weakness.
     As we approach a new millennium, let us do so with expectance 
and humility. May we assume an open and welcoming attitude toward 
God's compassion made flesh and dwelling among us in Jesus. As we
receive God's compassion into our hearts they fill and overflow. 
Compassion thus moves out from God through us: compassion 
toward one another across all the divisions that plague us as a 
church and as a nation and subvert all notions of being members 
one of another for the common good; compassion across cultures 
and national identities that make us creditors and debtors, rich and 
poor; compassion for the stranger and the other who is a potential 
angel of God rather than an enemy; compassion for the earth our home, 
whose resources we squander and misuse.
     A young woman pregnant before her marriage, a rude shed for 
animals behind an inn and thus God's word of compassion comes 
among us in the fragile form of a newborn child entrusted to our faltering 
human care. So it was two thousand years ago, so it is today. Such is 
God's trust in us. Such is God's hope for us. And, out of his store we
 are given "grace upon grace."
     You come to us, O Christ,
     at the turning of the year and the dawn of a new millennium:
     You are the Alpha and the Omega
     The beginning and the end. All times 
     and seasons are yours, and in you 
     all things hold together and are brought to completion.
     Draw us by your Spirit into communion 
     with you and one another and make us and all things
     whole and free in the full force
     of your deathless love.
     Amen. 
     Frank T. Griswold
     Presiding Bishop and Primate